Person
Every book Steve Magness recommended on podcasts
Steve Magness discussed several books and studies during his appearance on The Rich Roll Podcast, reflecting on his own writing journey and human psychology. Magness described his first book, The Science of Running, as a narrowly focused and intense dive into the physiology of training. Turning to the work of others, he brought up Alex Hutchinson's book about the human drive to explore, noting how its themes formed the basis of his own career. He also cited Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone to support his thesis that modern societal distress stems from a failure to fulfill basic psychological needs through quality community engagement. Within his own book, Win the Inside Game, Magness explored various performance studies, including research on Olympic swimmers who transitioned from a performance mindset to a quest mindset. Furthermore, he referenced Michael Gervais's book on mastering the fear of other people's opinions, connecting it to the core psychological barriers that short-circuit personal mastery.
Books recommended by Steve Magness
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Win the Inside Game
Win the Inside Game by Steve Magness is a high-performance psychology book that explores mindset, mental toughness, and how athletes and individuals navigate pressure and expectations.
Discussed“and one of my favorite studies I talk about in the book they looked at Olympic swimmers and these are like Olympic medalists some big some of the biggest names and they looked at and interviewed them and what they found is that the vast majority of these athletes at some time had a performance mindset”
Where to get it
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Bowling Alone
Bowling Alone by Robert D.
Discussed“and as I kind of outlined my thesis in the book is this is that a large reason why we're there is because we're not fulfilling our basic psychological needs with good quality stuff we're reaching for the candy and we've known this for a long time going back to Robert putnam's bowling alone right in the 1980s wrote a”
Where to get it
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The Explorer's Gene
The Explorer's Gene by Alex Hutchinson is a compelling non-fiction book that explores humanity's deep-seated drive to seek the unknown and venture into uncharted territory.
Discussed“I got to tell you his new one is on you know why we have this uh need to explore and when reading it and discussing with him like that is the basis of I think my entire career as well”
Where to get it
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The First Rule of Mastery
The First Rule of Mastery by Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychology book that explores how to liberate oneself from the paralyzing fear of other people's opinions and redirect focus inward.
Discussed“I mean this that's what you just said is like at the core of Michael J's book fear of other people's opinions yeah and like how that's that short circuit's Mastery”
Where to get it
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The Science of Running
Discussed“I was very narrow my first book science of running no idea what I was doing just said I want to write like the Beall end all on the phys ology of training so it was like nerd out right”
Where to get it
Books Steve Magness wrote
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Win The Inside Game: High Performance Psychology, Busting Fitness Myths, & Getting Unstuck With Elite Coach Steve Magness | The Rich Roll Podcast | 2025-01-30 | 8 |
Other mentions (7: passing, ad reads, own books)
“yeah so you can check out the book win the inside game wherever books are sold Amazon Barnes & noville all that stuff”
“uh just read my book and I'll give you all the answers no but here's the Nuance of it is there there's there's no great answers because there's societally things that we need to address”
“and my call in this book is simple I'm not telling you forget about achievements okay I have achievements and goals that I want to get as well as anybody else but what I'm telling you is we need to rebalance that equation and part of that means we need to redefine success”
“and that's what I tried to bring in this new book is that you know doing hard things is is important it's valuable obviously”
“in the book I go into more details, but it was really about like accepting what you're gonna face knowing that it might be painful”
“I mean if you want to know what's missing read the book”
“We talked at the beginning, I've had four books, the first book, Science of Running, which was self-published. I put it out there right before the original like piece was supposed to come out.”